NGOs

The Republic of Kazakhstan, located in Central Asia, borders the Russian Federation to the North and the Xinjiang Uygur region of China to the East. Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since independence, civil society has flourished, with over 400 NGOs, many related to a wide spectrum of human rights causes, established in the last 25 years. Recently, however, international donors to Kazakh Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have tightened their budgets, and the government has stepped in to fund the “third sector.” While the civic space in Kazakhstan is relatively open, when compared to other countries in the region, recent legislation has imposed new restrictions on CSOs. Despite Kazakhstan’s independence, Russia continues to serve as a kind of political model for the region’s former socialist republics. With the implementation of the Kazakh “Operator Law” coming just a few years after the approval of the similarly restrictive Russian “foreign agent law,” Kazakhstan seems to be echoing Kremlin policy once again.

In September 2015, the Kazakh parliament introduced legislation that proposed a centralized system for administering grants and funds to CSOs in the country. The draft law proposed the creation of a “noncommercial operator institution”, through which all state and foreign funding would pass before being allocated to CSOs. The law also required CSOs to register their activities with the government and submit extensive information to a database managed by the government. The draft law was approved by the lower house of the Kazakh parliament in early September of 2015 and signed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev on December 2, 2015.

The new Operator Law, together with amendments made to the Criminal Code in January, has the potential to inhibit the operations of CSOs, particularly those related to human rights. According to the new amendments to the Criminal Code, CSO leaders who fail to register their organization or accept funding while the CSO is unregistered may be punished with up to six years in jail. Freedom House has tracked the decline of Kazakhstan’s civil society and reports that its “democratic progress” continues to decline. On a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free), Freedom House assigned Kazakhstan a score of 5.75 in 2006 and a 6.50 in 2015.

Kazakh officials in favor of the Operator Law claim that it was designed to “bring greater organization and efficiency to the process of distributing public funds, mediate between state agencies and their suppliers from the CSO community and bring greater transparency to the NGO-state procurement process as a whole.” However, activists and CSO leaders fear that the law imposes restrictive government oversight on Kazakhstan’s civil society. With a single organization allocating funds to CSOs, the government may withhold money from organizations that it perceives to be threatening. Historically, Kazakhstan has favored certain CSOs over others, with a higher percentage of government funding being allocated to the construction of schools and hospitals rather than support for human rights initiatives. Hudson Institute stated that this may be due to a general mistrust of the sector after the destabilizing “Orange Revolutions” in the early 2000s. The Operator Law has the potential to widen the financial chasm between CSOs that the government supports and those that it does not.

Last October, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concerns about the law when spokesperson Cécile Pouilly asserted that, “the scope and the vague wording of these amendments leaves room for broad interpretation, especially in terms of grant making, which may result in an arbitrary and discriminatory application of the law.” Similarly, UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai warned that the law, “may not only compromise the independence of associations, but challenge their very existence.” He asserted that financial resources are vital to freedom of association. The NGO community also spoke out against the law with Human Rights Watch urging Kazakhstan to “Amend the law on CSOs so that it meets international standards on freedom of association.”

Undoubtedly, the Kazakhstan Operator Law bares resemblance to the Russian “Foreign Agents” Law that was passed in July 2012. The Russian law established that any civil society organization that received money from foreign sources, either governmental or private, had to register with the Ministry of Justice as an “organization carrying the function of a foreign agent.” Many have argued that the term “foreign agent” carries with it a heavy Cold War era connotation intended to demonize those civil society groups that carry the label. Additionally, the law states that CSOs are required to submit extensive semi-annual reports and financial records to the government regarding their organizational activities. Today, over 120 civil society organizations are registered as foreign agents, including many prominent political and human rights organizations.

Unfortunately, a series of amendments made by the Duma in 2014 increased the regulatory power of the “Foreign Agent” Law. These amendments gave the Ministry of Justice full power to register groups as “foreign agents” without the groups’ consent. The 2014 amendments also made it illegal for Russian political parties to be sponsored by or associated with CSOs possessing “foreign agent” status. Much like the Kazakh Operator Law, Russia’s “Foreign Agents” Law allows the government to closely monitor its civil society and prevent threatening or politically uncomfortable organizations from receiving operational resources. In Russia, as in Kazakhstan, Civil Society Organizations are funneled through a single institution, the Ministry of Justice, which maintains exclusive jurisdiction over the operational power of CSOs.

Douglas Rutzen of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law asserts that Russia has been a key leader in the increasingly restrictive civil society climate in Eurasia and Central Asia. Rutzen notes that, while Russia was not the first country to implement laws that inhibit foreign funding, it contributed to the development of similar laws in neighboring countries. Citing Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 book “Tipping Point,” Rutzen compared restrictive civil society laws to an infectious disease, with Russia as the carrier. The comparison is apt. Since Russia implemented the “Foreign Agent” Law in 2012, over 70 countries have proposed constraints on civil society. Among these, Kazakhstan’s Operator Law is important because it illustrates the extent to which the space for civil society organizations is shrinking on a regional level.

The Olympics have always been about stories and narratives. Athletes in sports, both obscure and relevant, represent their countries and play out the story of their nation, whether it be powerhouse nations raking in the medals or the simple story of the Jamaican bobsled team. The ability to host the event is also a story of the rise of a nation and the ability to show either one’s might or newfound brilliance on the world stage. Back in October 2013, we looked at how the story of the Sochi Olympic games were unfolding at that time. With the Winter Olympics beginning shortly, it was time revisit our intrepid heroes and villains.

Despite the lack of attendance by some world leaders, the world’s games at the Olympics will continue. One of the questions that will be asked is how much all this negative press hangs over the Olympics. What will be the effects of this event after the torch has been extinguished? This is a tale with many twists and turns, with more anti-heroes than heroes. At the least, everybody will be watching Sochi to see how the story unfolds.

From various recent photos, it could be presumed that Ukraine is consuming itself into a fiery maelstrom. However, the seeds for these protests lie in the recent past, starting with the Orange Revolution. In 2004, Viktor Yanukovich (show in red for clarity) was running against Viktor Yushchenko (shown in orange) for the presidency of Ukraine. Bizarrely, even before polls had started, Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin, leaving him pockmarked and scarred. This was very suspect considering that Yanukovich had a history of criminal activity through assault, battery, and robbery. The exit polls gave Yushchenko a margin of victory of 11% while the official results declared Yanukovich the victor by 3%, sparking massive protests in the street. After many months, threats of secession from the pro-Russia East of the country, and a re-run of the polls, Yushchenko won by 8 points and finally took office as the president of Ukraine. The political intrigue did not end with the Orange Revolution. Viktor Yanukovich was elected president in 2010, beating the populist opposition figure Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the leaders of the Orange Revolution, which the international community observed as free and fair. Shortly thereafter, Tymoshenko was arrested and convicted to seven years in prison and fined $190 million for supposedly signing a disadvantageous contract with Russia for natural gas when she was prime minister. There were more protests, though smaller in nature and mostly only Tymoshenko supporters.

The effects of the dioxin poisoning on Viktor Yushchenko.

Within this politically charged atmosphere, there was always a geopolitical divide between pro-Europe factions and pro-Russia factions. With the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency in Russia, there has been a revival in the idea of a Eurasian Union. Having already lowered tariffs and customs duties, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus aim to create an economic union similar to the European Union. Key to this Eurasian Union is Ukraine, as it is one of the biggest markets from the former Soviet Union. Russia is the destination for a quarter of Ukrainian exports. One of the main worries for Ukrainians is that a Eurasian Union will lead to a political union dominated by the Russia, as Putin has been seeking closer ties with the former states of the Soviet Union.

This has not set well with the Ukrainian people, especially those around Kiev. They have set up protests in Independence Square, now known as the Euromaidan, camping out there since November 2013. Protesters have barricaded themselves in government buildings, including the ministry of justice and Kiev city hall. The Ukrainian government passed a series of harsher restrictions on protests, known by protesters as the “dictatorship laws”, by a show of hands. These laws include such flagrant violations of civil rights and protests, such as trial in absentia and a blanket amnesty against those who commit crimes against the protesters, like the security and law enforcement officers. The law with the most far-reaching consequences is the law requiring non-governmental organizations accepting foreign funding to register as “foreign agents”, modeled on a similar law passed in Russia.

The Ukrainian parliament votes for restrictions on protest with a show of hands.

In Russia, the “foreign agents law” has been used to crack down on civil society organizations. The Golos Foundation, a civil society organization that helps monitor elections, has been fined $10,000, even after they stopped receiving funding from foreign sources. Amnesty International, Transparency international, charities, non-orthodox churches, and even a french language school have been raided by the Russian security forces trying to weed out “foreign agents”. The nature of the law has been to “stigmatize and discredit NGOs engaged in human rights, election monitoring, and other critical work”. In essence, the law has been used to stymie dissent from organizations promoting community-wide discourse. There is the fear that Yanukovich, with his his criminal history and suspected involvement with vote-rigging, could clamp down on civil society and harass organizations in a similar manner as they have in Russia. Luckily, the Ukrainian parliament repealed the anti-protest laws with near unanimity. However, as it’s shown in the past, the Russian bear is always waiting in the wings.

Last week, the CGP blog commented on the state of the CSO sector in Russia amidst the oncoming 2014 Winter Olympic Games in the country. The highly controversial interactions between the environmental group Greenpeace International and the Russian government in the past weeks align with the past grievances we reported on:

A Russian coastguard official points a knife at a Greenpeace International activist who tried to scale an oil platform owned by state-owned energy giant Gazprom (Source: Denis Sinyakov/Greenpeace).

30 people from 18 countries detained on the Greenpeace International ship “Arctic Sunrise” are awaiting trial on piracy charges and face up to 15 years in prison if convicted related to a September 18th incident in which some of the activists tried to scale an oil rig in the Pechora Sea owned by the national oil-giant Gazprom. The activists may spend up to two months in pre-trial detention in a Murmansk jail awaiting the decision of Russian prosecutors. Greenpeace International director Kumi Naidoo called the seizure of the vessel and the arrest of its crew the worst “assault” on the environmental activist organization since one of its ships was bombed in 1985. The detained activists are reportedly being kept in “solitary confinement for 23 hours a day,” while others are held in “extremely cold cells.” Russian officials have called the protest “pure provocation” and an “encroachment on the sovereignty” of Russia.

International aid’s minimal impact on the developing world has put the whole system into a bit of an existential crisis. As the developed world continues to struggle with economic recession, many have come to question the need to divest resources towards foreign countries when there is an abundance of problems to address at home. However, the real problem with aid is that very few people on the giving side actually know what happens with the aid and the impact it has on the ground.

CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA), an American nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the effectiveness of international aid, conducted a four year investigation into the cumulative benefits of international assistance in 15 different countries – that is, the effect of all aid projects on a certain area, rather than a specific case.

NGOs operate on the principle of being independent “Third Sector” organizations, working outside the realm of the government “Public Sector” and the for-profit “Private Sector.” The independence of NGOs of all causes has long been considered a fundamental operating principle. For humanitarian organizations, being perceived as an extension of state power could have fatal consequences. For another group of NGOs, a lack of independence may not be life-threatening, yet for political non-profit organizations in the U.S., a perception of partisanship could result in the revocation of its “social welfare” tax-exempt status.

Over the course of the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that unleashed a new wave of regulations on the nation’s 220,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Passed by the upper house of parliament earlier in July, the legislation will force NGOs that engage in “political activity” and receive funding from abroad to register with the government and file detailed reports of the organization’s activities. Failure to comply with the provisions carry fines up to $9,000 or 2 years in prison. The measures have revived the controversy concerning the transparency of the Russian government and its commitment to democratic institutions.

A reaction to some of the largest anti-government protests since the fall of the USSR, the law was intentionally designed to restrict and suppress opposition political activity, a long-term goal of Putin’s United Russia party. The government, marred by allegations of electoral fraud and widespread corruption, intentionally designed the policy to restrict certain avenues of political speech and expression. Like the recent NGO bans and regulations in Egypt, Libya, and Zimbabwe, Russia’s NGO law will weaken dissent and the establishment of viable competition in the political arena. Continue reading →

The Center for Global Prosperity is focused on educating policy leaders and the general public on the crucial role of the private sector (both non and for profit) as a source of economic growth and prosperity around the world. To accomplish this central mission, the Center produces The Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances, which identifies the sources and amounts of private giving around the world and The Index of Philanthropic Freedom, which identifies the barriers and incentives to private giving in 64 countries.